Wednesday, December 20, 2017

Annual Thanksgiving time family photo, two years ago. The story behind the picture:
Nobody was happy, everyone was cold and grumpy--especially me--, it was
way too dark already to take the photos. But Bree was getting ready to
head back home, and I was desperate to get it done. Not just because
I'm a maniac about pictures, but because this was just a little after my
diagnosis, just before my first surgery. At the least, I'd never
exactly look like this again. Even more than that, even though it was
caught early, even though I was one of the lucky ones, the future was
still a question mark. A tiny little irrational voice, persistent but
quiet, kept whispering, "But what if this is the last time we get to
take a family photo? What if this is the last time the kids take a
picture with me? I want the kids to at least have this." Irrational,
but I wouldn't let it go until we got a few shots. See how dark it is
in the photo? It's so much brighter now on the other side of the shot.
In this photo, I see gratefulness.

Monday, December 4, 2017

Today’s an anniversary for me—a
celebration. Today I am two years cancer
free, having undergone a mastectomy to rid my body of the cancer lurking there
on December 4th, 2015. It was
probably the scariest day I’ve ever experienced, because of the unknown.

The biggest unknown--would they
find it had spread to my lymph nodes?
When Mom went in for surgery to remove a cancerous tumor in her kidneys
years before, they found one of the kidneys 90% consumed and the other 40%
consumed with tumors. Worse? The cancer had spread to her lymph nodes and
she’d need chemotherapy and radiation.
Less than 9 months later, she was gone.
Now, I had been assured that my cancer was caught early and it was highly
unlikely that it had spread, but still they said they wouldn’t know positively
until they got in there and tested the nodes.
Of course the other looming unknown was what would it feel like to wake
up from surgery and be literally missing a piece of myself? It’s a surreal notion to contemplate. I mean, there are certainly people in this
world who lose limbs to disease or accident, and the impact on their lives is
immeasurably more than it is for one who loses, in essence, a large area of
fairly non-utilitarian fat (post-child-bearing years) from the body. Nonetheless, it was a piece of ME, and a part
of me I’d been accustomed to living with for a great many years. When the landscape was thus altered, would I
awaken to still look like me? Would I still feel like me? Would I recoil at the
scars left behind and feel less whole?
Finally, there was the unknown of how all of this would affect the
people I loved. I know my husband, my
kids, my sisters and brother, and my friends were worried. Would my husband still look at me the same
way? Would my kids be in constant fear
of a recurrence? I found that as I was
reassuring them all that this was just a blip on life’s radar and that it would
be an inconsequential bump in the road, I was really just reassuring
myself. Everything was going to be
alright, because it simply had to be.

It turns out I was one of the lucky
ones. The cancer was caught early
enough, and it hadn’t made its way into the lymph system. There was no radiation or chemotherapy, and
my team of doctors has been wonderful as I have navigated the path toward
reconstruction. To be honest, I am
sometimes sheepish about even calling myself a “cancer survivor”, because I
didn’t have to endure the grueling and often brutal effects of the aftercare
that many of my counterparts have braved.
I got the easy way out. The scars
are there, a permanent mark from the past, but I am otherwise unscathed from
the attack. With an incredible husband
who never left my side and has cared for me after each of the five surgeries I had,
and with an amazing network of family and friends who have cheered me on and
supported me in innumerable ways, I look ahead to celebrating this milestone
for many, many years to come. This day
will always be a quiet marking of “Before” and “After” for me, but it isn’t the
day that defines my Life Story. It’s
just a milestone along the way.

Friday, December 1, 2017

I need to finish grading this stack of papers what day
should I book a train for D to come home from school gotta finish my posts for
my last grad class what am I going to wear to the concert tonight I hope my
students remembered to bring in books for the book drive oh I need to send off
finals to the print shop I wonder if there’s anything else I need to do to
process my degree thank god it’s payday I need to get a new bed for the guest
room that has a trundle so that both girls can sleep there when they come home
to visit I need to clean out N’s room so that we can get a smaller bed in there
and give him more room man, I hope his job actually pays him this week we need
to get him registered for classes next semester I hope he’s doing okay I’m
excited to shop for all the kids for Christmas I still want to make some gifts
for a few people, too Paint Nite with the girlfriends was a lot of fun we
should do that again, but I’m not sure they all loved painting D and I should
do some painting and photography during the Christmas break I need to order
some prints of the family shots I took at Thanksgiving I’m sad that B doesn’t
love how she looks because she’s beautiful, but then I think how critical I am
of how I look and I get it we don’t look at ourselves in love like the people
who love us do I wish I didn’t weigh so much not loving what I look like right
now (ever) the most charitable thing I can muster on some days is well, I’m not
awful, but some days I don’t even get there sometimes I worry that D will look
at me and wonder why he’s with someone whose weight is out of control but I can’t
really ever express that out loud because insecurity is unattractive, so that’s
a bit of a catch-22 and it only sounds like you’re fishing for compliments
anyway okay, enough of that self-destructive nonsense, because who needs that
on a Friday morning speaking of nonsense that world news has spiraled out of
control of course it’s been spiraling since the last presidential election, but
it’s kind of unbelievable to think how strange it is to wake up every single
morning wondering are we at war who has been charged with sexual harassment today
what new indictments or resignations of top government officials have been
announced and why in God’s name are we not going after the one who needs to be
dethroned before more damage is done, because it’s already going to take years
to right the ship as it is how much more damage can the ship sustain before
sinking altogether my goodness I’m in a dark frame of mind today which is not
normal for me gotta reset my perspective before my class comes in I need to
fine-tune my planning for the rest of the semester, write a couple of letters
of recommendation, prepare for an observation next week, finalize business with
my student teacher I need to get Christmas decorations out of storage to
decorate the house oh gosh I need to clean the house we need to get rid of some
stuff the house is in desperate need of new carpets or flooring holy cow, what
are we going to do about the leak and the mess in the back bathroom we still
need to replace the lighting in the dressing room and I don’t even have the
first clue how to go about doing it and I think D got frustrated with the
project so it’ll just get left as is I need to take care of some bills and
paperwork too and I need to get to the post office to mail some packages I
really want to do some holiday baking, but it is ridiculous to even think about
it because then I’d want to eat some of it, and refer back to the earlier train
of thought where I said I weighed too much already so much to do, so why sit
here writing all this down because maybe, just maybe if I can get it all out
here, I can get it out of my mind and start working on some of those things
that are floating around in my brain like snow flurries that make it hard to
focus on any one thing at a time

Tuesday, November 14, 2017

Write, even when you don't feel profound; paint, even when you don't
feel artistic; take pictures when you need to practice seeing through
another lens; read to hear voices that speak wisdom or joy or humor or
humanity into your soul; dance, even if no one else joins in; sing at
the top of your lungs, even when no one else knows your song. Forgive
yourself if you don't feel perfect at any of these things, because every
small offering of art offered in love--whatever form, whatever shape,
adds beauty to the world. And friend, we need to continue to add beauty
to the world, to let it grow and rise up against the ugliness that
threatens to continue to speak darkness and bleakness into the
individual and collective soul.

Wednesday, September 20, 2017

My beautiful girl, you are already well into your fourth
week away from home—longer than you’ve ever been away from me.It’s quieter here now, and I’m missing the
sound of your laughter and the day-to-day chatter at home, on the soccer field,
at the track, on the pool deck, and in the car. So, so many hours in the car! Although
I sometimes wished you could cart yourself off to practice or to youth group in
these past couple of years, I almost feel that your incredible commitment to
NOT getting your license while you were in school was an inadvertent gift to
me, because it afforded us so much time together.Your sister was already grown and living her
life in L.A., and although your brother was still at home, he was keen to
exercise the freedom that all young college men with the keys to their own cars
yearn for.

So that left you and me, Kid, with lots of things to talk
about, great and small.And I cherish
those times, whether we were talking about where you wanted to go to college
and whether or not we could make it work financially, or talking about your
friends and all your exploits together, or talking about your passions—church,
photography, sports, or even talking about which Starbucks drink you were
trying to talk me into buying you on the way home from school.And even though we spent so much time
together, I still feel like there were things I should have said—things I want
you to know as you are creating a new life for yourself in your home away from
home at college.You’re going to have
incredible experiences in college, but you might have some pretty rotten ones,
too, and it makes me sad that I won’t be there by your side to help you
navigate those experiences.That’s okay,
though.It’s the way it’s supposed to
be, and I’ll probably have a harder time with it than you will, truth be
told.Still, I’ll share a couple of bits
of wisdom and advice that you probably know, but that I want you to hear again
anyway:

First, I am incredibly proud of you.Your determination and perseverance have
surprised and delighted me since literally before you were born (that’s a story
for another day).Those traits have
propelled you to challenge yourself both physically and intellectually, and
have paved the way for you to become the independent young woman you are.You know what you want, and you are ready to
climb any mountain that stands in your way.At the same time, you have a giving and loving spirit that gives you a
heart of service, which is something I dearly love about you.

That determination and perseverance goes a long way.However, sometimes, no matter how hard we
work or push ourselves, circumstances beyond our control can thwart us.Things aren’t always going to go your way;
it’s a fact of life.Sometimes, things
will be downright awful.We can’t
control everything, but we can control how we respond.Use your creativity to look at a problem in a
new light, or to reframe the situation so that you can learn and grow from
it.Failure is only failure it you
choose to view it as such.

You’re going to make mistakes.Sometimes you won’t know you’re making a
mistake until it’s too late, and sometimes you’ll make a mistake knowing full
well it’s the wrong choice but in the moment you let your impulse take over,
instead of your brain.Just know that
when—not if—you make a poor choice as you are learning to be an adult, I will
never love you less for it, and I will support you as you work to right that
mistake.

College has a wealth of new experiences, and you alone are
responsible for making sure you get all you can out of it.Get yourself to classes, make sure you take
care of your business, pay attention to deadlines.Also, meet lots of friends, get involved, be
a part of the culture of the place. Be
the one, as you always have been, to reach out and include those who seem to
need someone to reach out and include them.Find balance.This is so
important.And if you get a few Bs along
the way, don’t beat yourself up about it, and know that I won’t either.(A “C” here or there won’t kill you
either—and it won’t kill me.)Balance,
balance, balance.Sleep, study, laugh,
play, learn.They’re ALL important.

From your mama, you got a basic belief in the goodness of
people, and I am incredibly thankful for that.However, as much as I believe in the goodness of people, I know that
there are a few rotten apples out there.You know this too.Trust your
instincts on this.Like many young
women, it’s hard to face the reality that there are people who might mean you
harm.At parties, stay with people you
know.Have a buddy system where you and
your friend check in on each other.NEVER take a drink from someone you don’t know, or that you didn’t see
poured.Better yet, take your own
drink.Be vigilant about not being
cornered in a place where others can’t see you.Don’t walk out on your own after dark.This is a hard subject, because I don’t even begin to want to think
about my baby girl in a situation where she could be in danger, but colleges
can be notorious for too much alcohol, uninhibited behavior, and ‘friends’ who
take advantage of being unsupervised by parents, sometimes for the first time
in their lives.And yes, these things
happen even at Christian colleges.You have
often joked that you are strong enough to take on someone who wants to attack
you.You are fierce, you are strong—but
you are one person, and any person, given the right circumstances, can be
overcome.And there are fierce, strong,
and callous human beings, much as I hate to acknowledge it, who are sick,
angry, entitled.Caution and awareness
are strengths, too.Use those
strengths.Know this, though, loud and
clear—if you are ever attacked, accosted, raped, no amount of anything you did
or didn’t do, before or after, will make it your fault.Ever.

Ugh.That was hard to
write.I didn’t even want to write the
word “rape”, because it’s so hard to wrap my brain around the concept in
relation to my own children.I thought
it was important to say, however, because I don’t ever want one of my kids to
be ashamed to say the word to me if they are looking to me for support and love
and comfort as a result of it.

Okay—last subject.(For now.I am your mama, after
all, and I reserve the right to disseminate mama-ly advice until you’re, say,
93.Yes, I have spectacular ambition
when it comes to my own longevity.)As I
have said before, this is an age and a time when you’ll be discovering all
kinds of experiences.You might even
fall in love.Many people do, in
college.Some people don’t, and that’s
perfectly fine, too.If the right Prince
Charming doesn’t sweep you off your feet, Honey, don’t settle for Prince
Churlish.There’s no timeline but your own
when it comes to love.If you do fall in
love, there’s always the possibility of heartbreak.You might love someone who doesn’t love you
back, or who does for a time, and then moves on with his life.It will feel like the end of the world.Your heart will be crushed.You won’t know how to be who you are
anymore.But please listen to this: you
are a beautiful, talented, wonderful gift.If you find a man who recognizes this and treats you accordingly, well,
that’s a wise and wonderful human being.But you are not beautiful, talented, and wonderful BECAUSE a boy might
love you; if his love or infatuation falters, it does not lessen who you
are.This is a terribly hard lesson to
remember in the depths of despair, but if you tuck this truth deep in your
heart now, it will be there when you need to find your way back to you.This was a hard lesson for me to learn—it
took me many years to recover myself when I was young—but you are wiser than I
was at your age.And just like you may
one day experience heart-break, you may also cause heart-break, even when you
don’t want to.You may find that the
love you thought was there simply isn’t anymore.Or you may find someone you find dear—someone
you love, but aren’t in love with. This doesn’t make you a bad person; don’t
hold on to love out of guilt or sadness.Be gentle with a heart you no longer want to share, and be kind to that
person who is, like you, a beautiful, talented, wonderful gift, who may
struggle awhile to find his way back to himself as he is piecing back together
his heart.

These are some of the things I think about now, as I’m
riding alone in my car each day to the school we both shared, and while running
errands throughout my week.I am sure
there are a million more conversations I’ll have with you in my head in between
the short phone calls and the text messages back and forth, just like I thought
about when your sister left for school or when your brother started
college.You all grow up, and you learn
to move in a much bigger world than the tiny world of our home, but I want you
to know: I will always be your mom, I will always want to share in a part of
your world, I will always be here for you to offer advice or support, and I
will always love you. You are always in my heart, even when you are not sitting next to me.

Friday, July 7, 2017

Summer in July. If you’re from Fresno, that means if humanly possible, you’ll spend as much time in the pool as you can. If you’re a kid in the 1970s in Fresno, that means every day, all day, flaunting the scorching sizzle of 105 degrees of unrelenting heat by splashing, playing, and diving into the deliciousness of the backyard pool. We had sitting-on-the-bottom-of-the-pool contests, and races walking on our hands into the deep end. We belly-flopped and did back flips and cannonballs off the diving board. We took breaks to run in the house to pee if we thought Mom was paying attention; we didn’t run into the house if we thought we could get away with it, because it was so much work to drag ourselves out and away from the fun, dry ourselves off completely so as not to drip a trail of water through the house, and peel off (and then put back on) the cold, soggy suit just to run back out and rejoin whatever games were in progress. (I know you’re judging here; I also know you’ve done it too. And if you have kids now, you’re fooling yourself if you think they’ve never peed in your pool.)

We had a built-in group of playmates, since there were five of us kids. Our next-door neighbors had ten kids, some of whom were older and out of the house, but many of whom were right there with us in our pool every day. Around lunchtime, Mom would often appear with a stack of sandwiches and some grapes or oranges. We also feasted off of the two mulberry bushes that were in our backyard. (Until we moved to that house, I thought mulberry was just a made-up word that was used in a nursery rhyme.) We knew Mom was in the house and was only a yell away in case of emergencies, but she didn’t often come out to the pool to swim with us. She was scared of swimming, borne of the sink-or-swim lessons she had as a child, when her step-dad threw her into the lake and told her she’d have to figure out how to get back to land on her own. She never got over the panic she felt around water, but she wanted us to have a pool. (She also paid to take us to swim lessons so we could learn how to swim in a less threatening environment than she did.) Although Mom occasionally passed by the kitchen window with a casual “Be careful!” or “Watch your little brother!”, we were mostly joyously, raucously, exuberantly free from parents, from worries, from cares about anything more important than which kid got to decide the next game that we played. Sun up to sundown, that’s where we were. It’s a wonder we survived without drowning or sunstroke.

Today we wouldn’t dream of leaving our young kids to their own devices all day, especially not in the pool. The dangerous part for us, though, was when Dad was off for the weekends and he decided to join us in the pool. Dad liked to rough house and was impatient with ‘weakness’. He’d jump in the pool and wrestle and fight, pitting his 200 pound frame against his 12 year old son, his 10 and 8 year old daughters. On the one hand, we liked when he would join in our games; he was a busy man and spent a lot of time at the office during the week days. There was always an edge, though—the feeling that things could turn at any moment. They often did. Riding on Dad’s back was fun; watching him swan-dive into the pool, seeming to freeze momentarily mid-air to cockily salute and wave to an adoring audience—well, we loved those moments. But inevitably, Dad wanted to wrestle us, take us on precariously close to the deeper end of the pool where he could stand, but we could not. There was something strange that overcame him during those battles, a competitive spirit that could not be tempered with logic or reason. He played dirty, not one to let his kids get the better of him. His signature move was to suddenly swing around to face whichever kid was trying to ride his back to bring him down. He’d swiftly reach out to hold us underwater, the palm of his hand planted firmly on the top of his opponent’s head—the ultimate show of superior strength and agility. To this day I can remember the feeling of being held, firmly and helplessly, under the surface, just moments shy of far too long—arms flailing, panicked eyes casting about for some means of escape, feeling the burning sensation in my lungs and knowing I couldn’t hold my breath anymore. I remember several times thinking, “He’s going to forget to let me up in time. I’m going to drown before he lets me up!” Inevitably, when Dad did finally let me or my brother or sister up from his vise-like grip, we’d either be angry (my brother, my sister), or we’d be crying. Gary even tried to sucker punch Dad in retaliation once, but a swift, sneak attack underwater is difficult to pull off. It set Dad off even more, and Gary was pushed underwater once again in order for Dad to underscore his dominance. Dad’s victorious gloating grin after these matches would be eclipsed by that impatient, irrational anger. He’d call us babies, he’d rail at us for playing the game and then being sore losers. He’d become enraged and said he wouldn’t play with us anymore, and then he’d either banish us to the shallow end or tell us we weren’t big enough to go in the pool at all and would make us get out for the day. He’d brood and sulk for the rest of the day. There were always arguments with my mother, too, when she told him he needed to be more gentle with us; he needed to remember that he was bigger and stronger than all of us. He, on the other hand, didn’t want to raise sissies; he didn’t want to have weaklings for kids. We needed to get over it and toughen up. At the same time, he seemed to need constant validation that we acknowledged him as the strongest, the wiliest of us all. He needed to know that we knew he was the alpha male. Even as a kid I thought it was irresponsible—unparental, even.

Those 1970s summers were seemingly carefree and without purpose, but they taught me a lot, too, about what I expect, and what I accept, from those who hold positions of power in my personal, professional, and public world. Back then, I was willing to jump back in the pool again and again, knowing that danger and anger lurked there, for the trade-off of my father’s playful bravado and fun that always preceded it. But I what I eventually realized is that risking my well-being in order to feed someone else’s insecurities is simply not worth diving into. Is it selfish to not want to drown under the weight of someone else’s baggage? Those hot summer days taught me that being selfish is sometimes necessary for survival.

Thursday, June 15, 2017

I read yesterday that Donald Trump blocked Stephen King on Twitter. J.K. Rowling immediately stepped up and said she'd be happy to send S.K. Trump's tweets so he could remain in the loop. This is all mildly amusing, if you don't think too hard about it. If you do stop to think about it, however, you realize that the Leader of the Free World, of a country that prides itself on freedom of speech, is deliberately and purposefully blocking his own communication to people he fears will disagree with him. Stephen King is only one of many dissidents who have been blocked from reading Trump's tweets. You might say that it's only social media, that it's Trump's right to block individuals--I mean, I certainly have that capability on my own Twitter account--but I am not a public figure tasked with representing those I might choose to block. Since Trump has made Twitter his primary means of communication with the American public--these reactionary, staccato, 140 character temper-tantrums designed to incite ire and deflect blame and responsibility--it should be alarming that he feels he is entitled to narrow his audience to those who won't call him out and challenge the veracity of his missives. He both works for us and is supposed to represent all of his constituents, not just those who nod and smile at his antics. If we don't recognize that his entitled view of narrowing the scope of available communication on Twitter as a microcosm of the broader intent to choke out opposing viewpoints in other areas of government, we are burying our heads in the sand.

Wednesday, June 14, 2017

There are a lot of people, women in particular, who have a
funny sort of relationship with their birthdays.Like a number of other women I know, my
mother celebrated her 29th birthday several times from—well, her 29th
birthday—until she passed away at 29 (plus 33).Honestly, I’ve never really understood the trepidation with which Mom
approached that annual date on the calendar.I love my birthday, and I’ve never been shy about proclaiming my
age.It’s a number, after all—a marker
indicating another year of family, friends, laughter, experiences—both good and
bad, and insights.And, as the saying
goes, having another birthday certainly beats the alternative of not having another birthday.

So here I am at 50.The way I see it, I’m halfway through this life. (I’m an overachiever—I’m
planning to live to the century mark.)I
used to think 50 was old, but it really is true that old age is way more about
a state of mind than the year you were born.Yes, I’m a little (a lot) softer and squishier than I used to be, and
there are wrinkles and hairs where there didn’t used to be any.And you know how some young adults outgrow
the awkward phase and develop into stunning beauties? I think I’ll stop holding
my breath for that now.That’s okay
though; I don’t feel old, and I think it’ll
be a long time before I hit that mark.What keeps you young is watching your children grow and seeing them
build their own futures and families, laughing and loving with friends,
traveling and seeking out new adventures, continuing to read and learn, making
new connections and seeking new perspectives.I’ve got lots of places to go, books to read, and people to love in the
next 50 years.Starting right now.Here’s to the next leg of the journey!